Re: Open Letter to Research Councils UK: Rebuttal of ALPSP Critique Dan Lester 25 Aug 2005 03:16 UTC
Tuesday, August 23, 2005, 6:46:20 PM, you wrote: AH> LSU financed its library appropriately AH> for a voc-ag or trade school while AH> getting AH> federal research grants designed to AH> generate more and more publications. AH> Unlike any other research university that AH> reviewed, LSU held its library spending at AH> zero growth, around $3.3 million for AH> years AH> while its sponsored research grew from $18 AH> to $68 million. I can't say whether your stats are good, bad or indifferent. But as soon as you find out a magical way to get the people who manage grants money on campus to give a percentage of the 'overhead' money to the library. Some libraries have managed it, and I'd love to know the secret, from Mr. Henderson or anyone else. AH> When I first published these figures AH> years ago, some assistant-provost-type AH> claimed my figures were wrong. I sent AH> my data and never heard another word. Well, you continue to quote data that is ten to twenty years old. How about some current statistics. Are you failing to give post-94 numbers because they no longer support your contentions? AH> LSU's financial achievements as a AH> 'research AH> university'were at the expense of: AH> (A) the commons, since its strategy AH> caused AH> subscription rates paid by other libraries AH> to rise: AH> 1. because remaining subscribers AH> had to share the burden, Well, even if there were as few as a hundred subscribers to the journal, and LSU dropped it, that would only increase the price one percent. And somehow that doesn't explain the ten and more percent increase per year for a vast number of journals. AH> 2. by generating increased numbers AH> of articles, adding to production. Well, I don't buy that at all. Had the journals ever thought about being more selective instead of getting ever fatter, and spawning even more journals? They could certainly consider it, starting in our own profession, which publishes significant amounts of crap. AH> (B) serious researchers who were forced to AH> find articles through secondary AH> publications AH> rather than browse each incoming issue -- AH> or to pay for their own subscriptions with AH> grant monies. Any serious scholar uses "secondary publications", by which I assume you mean indexing and abstracting services. No scholar could ever browse the current issues of every journal of potential interest. And of course now they can do so MUCH more easily by doing so online at the publishers' websites. cheers dan -- Dan Lester, Data Wrangler dan@RiverOfData.com 208-283-7711 3577 East Pecan, Boise, Idaho 83716-7115 USA www.riverofdata.com Fair is whatever God decides to do.